The Guild Opportunities Fund supports children and young people in accessing the full benefits of a Stephen Perse Cambridge education and the enhanced opportunities that this enables, thanks to the generosity of Guild members (our Alumni) and friends. It removes barriers of cost for eligible students in line with our vision of an outstanding educational environment. In this film, our school community members explain the transformative impact of bursary awards for all of us in school and in wider society.
 

 

 

Our partnership with North Cambridge Academy (NCA), our state school partner, which educates young people in Arbury from Years 7-11, has been underway since 2018. The two schools work together to enhance access to high-quality education and from 2019, Stephen Perse Cambridge provided fully-funded Sixth Form places for NCA alumni joining us for A Levels.

Previous NCA bursary award holders have successfully completed Sixth Form and moved on to university and training opportunities in areas including: Law, Maritime Engineering, Nursing, Politics & International Relations, Physiotherapy, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biomedical Engineering, Physics and Astrophysics.

Your gift to the North Cambridge Academy Sixth Form Awards at Stephen Perse Cambridge will provide a springboard for more young people to benefit from the specialist A Level and university preparation support that a Stephen Perse education provides, increasing their chances of identifying their optimum post-18 career development pathway and securing their place on the next step along that route.

 

We offer school places to a number of young people seeking international protection, where we are satisfied that we can meet their needs, potentially transforming lives. Through our bursary places for young people displaced by conflict, we aim to contribute to the national humanitarian effort by providing education, support and normality to young people seeking international protection, or experiencing hardship due to conflict.

We carefully assess each application and offer places where the Stephen Perse Cambridge is the right environment. To date we have hosted students displaced by the war in Ukraine, working with them and their families to offer education and pastoral support suitable for their circumstances. Previous recipients of this award have now proceeded to university, reading Maths at the University of Warwick and Management at the University of Manchester. One student achieved a clean sweep of grade 9s across her GCSEs and regularly competes and wins medals in international Olympiads in informatics. We are very proud of all their achievements. 

A gift to the Conflict Bursary programme will enable us to continue to support those already in our care and to offer similar opportunities in future to other potential award recipients striving to escape the terrible impact of war and conflict.

Alumna Catherine Lennon (née Smith) was passionate about drama in all its forms. When her friends wished to remember her, it was natural to choose drama as a vehicle to commemorate all that she brought to her family, friends, school and colleagues. 

The Catherine Lennon Drama Bursary funds group LAMDA lessons each year for a school fees bursary award holder in Years 10-13 who is preparing for Bronze, Silver or Gold Medal examination in Acting, Speaking Verse and Prose, or Speaking in Public, with a preference for Acting.

Drama is an integral part of Stephen Perse Cambridge, both within the timetabled curriculum and with a very busy and exciting co-curricular programme of clubs and productions for all ages. Students can be involved in productions as performers or behind the scenes, honing their theatre making skills on stage and in backstage and technical roles, or as choreographers and directors. Drama brings together students with otherwise disparate interests, develops camaraderie and teamwork, enhances creativity, problem solving and confidence and is widely recognised as being excellent for wellbeing.

Your gift will help the Catherine Lennon Drama Bursary awards to reach more young people who wish to hone and demonstrate their communication, creativity and acting skills, carrying these on into adult life and many settings.

 

Margaret Saunders (born 1905) was a pupil at Milton Road Primary School. Through a remarkable coincidence her headmaster spotted her potential, missed by the class teacher, and consulted her mother about entering her for the scholarship exam for the Perse School for Girls (now Stephen Perse Cambridge). Her mother wrote to her father, who was away from home serving in France in World War I. By the time his reply arrived to say not to enter her for fear of her being disappointed, she had already taken the exam and won one of only three scholarships available!

To her dying day, in 2010, Margaret was grateful to that headmaster and for the opportunities that the Perse School for Girls gave her, which she would not have had otherwise. This fund was established in Margaret’s memory by her daughters, themselves both Guild members, in the hope that it would assist current and future pupils from similar circumstances.

Adding your gift to the Margaret Saunders Uniform Fund will help lower-income families meet the cost of uniform purchases for students in receipt of 100% fees bursaries, so that they are fully equipped to take advantage of all that a Stephen Perse Cambridge education has to offer.